Who is not I
That sun rises and sets
Not that it does
But that I percieve so?

How can I unravel the miracle
That to get to the other side
I must first go half way
And to get half way
I must first go half way to that
So that to begin
I must be in two places at once?

How is it I sit
Upon a thing that is made of atoms
Which have no substance
And mostly space
And altogether
Has less matter
Than I could even see
So that is it actually none existant
Yet I sit upon it still?

What is in a man who stands in the snow
Singing blessings
While another curses the very same
Yet a third man
Believes he can judge the two?

Who can listen to the visions of a man
And dream upon such visions
And find belief swell inside himself about these things another shares
With joy at even retelling the stories of the first man
Yet upon his own dreams he finds no faith in himself?

How can one man look upon another woman and say
She must be covered
While another says
She must be naked
And still another says
She must be to the level of modesty I proclaim
All the while all three men actually desire the woman?

And there is the woman
Who says I have the most
And I am the most beautiful
And I must be the greatest
And I control the most
Yet they measure greatness
from those who are benieth the ideal???

I find the same paradigm in a hen house.

Where in all the earth
does any soul then stand in rightiousness
To say that they are sane?

Greatness cannot be measured
And nakedness cannot be known
And judgement cannot be given
By any form of life that withers on the same vine.

Find me one who upon a long day
Does not require sleep
Or yet another who upon a deep swim
Does not have need to rise up and breath.

Where has anyone of any creed or any time
Ever created anything
That was not formulated
From particles that already existed?

And some stand and say there is none as great as they
For they created this marvelous thing no other man made
Yet they have created nothing of the particles that created that thing.

Even a brilliant sculpture is not formed and built from rock
But rather it is discovered by the removal of material
And nothing was created that wasn’t already there.

Even a song that is plucked upon a string
Is already made of notes
That existed before the one did pluck
And heard in the mind of he who then did pluck
All within rules of sound that he cannot alter
Just as no one has ever altered them before.

No one can sing
Without the voice given to them
And none can express that song
Without instruction and hearing of songs beforehand.
Even they who train their voice to perfection
Do so at the pre-established measure before them.

Yet we find glory?
Yet we find praise?
Yet we find self satisfaction?

For what?

Oh, yes what great copiers we are.
Oh how I marvel at our ability to re-produce
What another first crafted.
Forgive me that I have not given enough respect
To they who discovered someone elses work.

Create me a beast
Without using any tools
Or building blocks
Or any portion
Of anything that ever existed before
And then I shall myself follow your lead.

Because THAT is what I truly seek
To Know the origins
To know the originator
To find the heart of the First artist
The First manufacturer
The first dreamer
The first lover
The first organizer
The first first of all firsts.

What else shall fill my soul?

When nothing of riches
And nothing of poverty
And nothing of law
And nothing of lawlessness
And nothing of conquest
And nothing of peace
Can do so?

My peace is the war of another
And My war is the joy of another
And my wealth is the poverty of another
And my poverty is the longing of another
And my law is the abomination of another
And my lawlessness is the praise of holiness
In the eyes of they who think themselves
A different grape.

To say I am greater than you
Is to say I am a fool
And to say I am less than you
Is to say I am a fool
And to say I am the same as you
Is to say I AM A FOOL.

To say I am unique
Is true
And to say I am not unique
Is true

Even in every thing
Of every thing
That I percieve,
It can only be percieved so
If it is given to me to do so.

Do I even know my path tomorrow?
Or do I just tell myself the LIE that I do
In order to feel like I do
Because of the fact that I could not possibly know?

And who I am to you
Will never be who I am
Yet it is all that I will ever be on earth
To you.

Yes truly for me it is so
That the sun rises and sets
And not that it does
But merly it is all I can know.

And here I copyright as though it is mine.
And Still another man will say it is by law
even though he could not know it truly is
unless he gave it to me.

Ryan Ranney o0o

 

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Ryan Ranney – Ranney Studios
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